Don't worry about me.
This was the phrase Bruce had heard most often from this friend of his.
Whether it was when the man had been struck by Omega Beams and dropped to his knees in pain, or when a kryptonite bullet was lodged in his chest, leaving him completely weakened—he had still said those same words to Bruce when he came to help.
To Bruce, Superman represented safety. To everyone, really, it was the same.
Even before Superman ever appeared, more than three-quarters of the world's population already believed in some kind of religion involving a savior. And when that savior truly stood before them—who could possibly refuse him?
Should he use that?
Batman considered how to reach for the item at his waist as naturally as possible. But the moment the thought of killing his friend surfaced, his heartbeat began to spike uncontrollably.
"Your heart rate just increased by seven percent, Bruce. Let me guess—you're thinking the thing inside that lead-lined box on your belt might turn the tables?"
Superman's heat vision incinerated the small box on Batman's belt. Whatever had been inside was now gone—no longer a threat.
He couldn't help but sigh, once again acknowledging Batman as the 'good friend' and 'world's greatest partner' he had personally recognized before:
"Even at this point, you're still this unyielding. You really are the most outstanding—and dangerous—among them, Bruce."
"You never give up on even the slightest chance of victory."
"Still, thanks for the reminder—when I eventually get bored in this universe too, I'll make sure to kill you first."
Batman quietly looked up at Superman… and above him.
"Right. But there's one thing I might not have reminded you of, that is…"
Wrapped in a curtain of black-purple shadow, Joey slipped silently back into the underground cavern. Raven's magic allowed him to approach this other-world Superman without a sound.
He grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him headfirst into the ground. At the same time, the dark veil around him transformed back into a raven of energy, carrying Batman away from the battlefield.
"I used to question myself—whether the way I used this kind of power was right, compared to Clark Kent."
The skin on Joey's face was still dry and cracked. This world's Raven only had half her body left, and not even half her strength. She couldn't even fly to the sun in an instant anymore.
A few seconds of sunlight wasn't enough to fully restore Joey—but the Superman down here had nearly wiped out what remained of the Justice League. Joey figured he had to stop him first.
"And after seeing all this chaos—these broken worlds and heroes—I realized that I'm actually the more noble one here."
Besides, Joey didn't expect this fight to be too difficult.
There was still a very useful weapon down here—the kryptonite spear.
Grabbing this Superman by his red cape, Joey hurled him straight toward the spear, immediately following up with a sweeping blast of heat vision.
The battered Superman tumbled across the ground, rolling several times before stopping near the kryptonite spear. By all Kryptonian logic, he should have been reduced to something no stronger than an ordinary human.
But he quickly proved that logic didn't mean much in this universe.
The radiation from the kryptonite didn't completely strip him of his powers—at the very least, not his heat vision.
Recovering from the initial blow, he used his remaining heat vision to burn the kryptonite tip of the spear to ash.
Joey's sweeping heat vision only left a shallow cut across the arm he raised to block it.
This slightly older Superman looked at Joey's much younger face, and a hint of nostalgia flickered in his eyes.
"So you're the Superman of this world. You look so young. What are you—seventeen? Eighteen—"
Before he could finish the word "eighteen," he had already vanished and struck.
Joey, on full alert, met him with a punch of his own.
Their fists collided with a thunderous boom. The shockwave that followed finally caused the already fragile underground cavern to collapse completely.
Buried under rock and debris, Joey activated his x-ray vision and instantly locked onto his opponent, smashing through the rubble to charge at him.
The other Superman had done the same—but instead of fighting underground, he shot upward toward the surface.
The red sun radiation earlier had drained much of his stored energy. All he needed now was sunlight to return to full strength.
Joey wasn't about to let that happen.
The moment the other Superman broke through the surface, Joey was already there, grabbing him by the ankle.
With a casual slam, he drove him into the ground, creating a crater several meters wide. Concrete across hundreds of meters fractured instantly.
For a battle between two Supermen, this level of destruction was almost gentle—like a breeze brushing against the face.
Thankfully, Gotham's usual fog and rain meant the city was nearly pitch-black, lit only by sweeping searchlights and neon signs.
Neither of them was at full strength.
The earlier clash with Barbatos had destroyed Joey's arc reactor—the device he had been using for continuous energy supply. Now, he wasn't sure whether he should gamble on how strong his opponent would be at full power.
Joey was a Kryptonian himself. He knew just how hard it was to kill one through conventional means.
He found himself at a crossroads.
One option was to keep the fight contained in Gotham—drag it out, wear the opponent down bit by bit. Joey was confident he could exhaust him completely before sunrise… and finish him off.
The cost would be that roughly half of Gotham City might need to be 'renovated' by the shockwaves of the battle.
Or they could push the fight into the sky, where both of their powers would begin to grow under solar radiation.
If Joey managed to overpower the opponent quickly, that would be fine. But if their strengths were equal—or worse, a fight between two Supermen without restraint would be enough to destroy the entire planet beneath them.
"You're still young. You're not even at the age where you can be called Superman yet. Let's call you Superboy instead."
And the Superman in front of Joey was completely confident in his own power.
He believed he was far stronger than this inexperienced young Superman, and his combat decisions only reinforced that assumption:
"I've lived for nearly thirty years. I've beaten Metallo, Bizarro, General Zod, Brainiac, Doomsday, Darkseid..."
"What have you accomplished at your age? What feats have you achieved with your powers? Playing whack-a-mole on the farm with heat vision?!"
This Superman had grown tired of being seen as the Kansas farm boy from Smallville.
As his power increased, so did his loneliness, until it swallowed him completely.
Everything in the universe felt too small, too dull—devoid of novelty.
He had grown bored of playing the same repetitive game with the ants beneath him.
But this new universe gave him a new idea: he could treat all existence—even across parallel worlds—as his playground.
A brand-new game had begun. And once he grew bored of this world, he would simply find the next gateway and continue endlessly.
"When I'm done with you, I'll take over everything in this world—your parents, Lana Lang, Lois Lane, and your identity as Superman..."
Before he could finish, Joey launched an uppercut that sent him flying sideways, crashing straight through the Wayne Casino building and punching a hole clean through it.
"Ha. Honestly, it's kind of you to try and be helpful."
For a moment—just a millisecond—Joey seriously considered that suggestion.
After all, none of those things existed in his own world, and what he was dealing with here… was far from ordinary.
Not every Superman gets the chance to face a revived Kryptonian empire and consider how to repel its fully organized interstellar military force.
If a normal Clark Kent from another universe proposed a swap, Joey's answer would probably be—
Bro… you serious? Let's switch.
But this Superman?
He surged forward again at explosive speed, dragged the fleeing opponent back from the sky, and slammed him onto the top of the Gotham Cathedral tower, smashing stone gargoyles into rubble.
Grabbing his cape, Joey pulled him close and delivered another devastating punch.
The heavy blow landed squarely on the opponent's face, dazing him as shockwaves shattered the glass of nearly every high-rise in Gotham.
Under Joey's relentless assault, the older Superman—already weakened by the red sun beam earlier—had almost no room to fight back.
He could only cover his head with his arms, unable to speak, while Joey's voice turned increasingly violent and contemptuous:
"You coward, bastard, animal, parasite—you don't even understand what it means to be Superman, you piece of shit!"
"I'm going to break your arms and shove them up your ass—"
With each punch, the Gotham Cathedral's towering spire was reduced section by section into rubble.
Their bodies descended lower and lower—from the bell tower, through Gotham's concrete surface, past the underground water systems, and finally all the way into the earth below.
Joey's fists were now completely unrestrained. Blood sprayed from the Kryptonian's body, and a violent thrill rose within him—an overwhelming urge to kill.
The suppressed Superman's arms were now torn and bloodied, though for a Kryptonian this was far from fatal. Once exposed to sunlight, such injuries would heal almost instantly.
Sensing Joey's increasingly wild and unstructured attacks, Superman found an opening.
He took a punch to the forehead as a trade, forcing Joey's arm open, then drove his elbow straight into Joey's throat.
Joey immediately lost his breath, clutching his neck and coughing violently, temporarily unable to continue.
Superman did not press the advantage. Instead, he simply flew upward and left him with a single remark:
"A little trick I learned from Bruce, martial arts. Kid."
He knew Batman was a master of nearly every martial art on Earth.
His ability to avoid killing while fighting criminals meant he understood exactly which strikes were most efficient for killing.
A strike to the throat like that was extremely dangerous—it was something Batman had once taught him as an example of what not to do.
Kryptonians may be resilient, but their physiology is still close enough to humans that a blow to the throat would incapacitate Joey for twenty to thirty seconds.
And that was more than enough time for Superman to escape into the sky and embrace the sun.